


Legacies

by queerhedgehog



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baby Steven, Bird mom, Bittersweet, Canon Queer Character, Crystal Gems, F/F, Family Feels, Feels, Female Relationships, Female-Centric, Flashbacks, Gem War, Gen, Grief/Mourning, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Light Angst, Loss, Love, Memories, Mommy Issues, Mother-Son Relationship, POV Female Character, Pre-Canon, Protectiveness, Queer Families, Queer Themes, Sad, Short, Slice of Life, Sweet, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4713551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerhedgehog/pseuds/queerhedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl looks at a toddler Steven, and finds herself remembering Rose</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacies

 

Sometimes it hurt so much to look at this little boy.

  
Pearl followed Rose to Earth, a routine mission, even though she knew her loyalty to the other gem was anything but. The fervor with which she strategized tactics and studied data on missions was not some patriotic exuberance to complete Homeworld missions. It wasn't the thought of conquering worlds and expanding the Gem empire, or even the nonsense the Homeworld had started to push about them all being part of the noble task of creating new gem life. It was to see Rose smile ever so slightly, to impress the other gem, to be noticed by her. Every angle of the injectors she calculated, every battle field charted, every enemy movement predicted, Pearl did only in hopes that Rose would take a moment, no matter how small, to focus on no one but her, to give a treasured, “well done.”

All the more precious, since as the millennia went by Rose smiled less and less, even when missions were a triumph and a planet produced thousands upon thousands of gems before being drained.

Pearl's unit marched to the warp that would send them to Earth, a planet so filled with organic resources, Homeworld had been willing to authorize warp pads that consumed energy at twice the normal rate in order to send gems there. As the blue light beamed around them, and that familiar sensation of being hurled into the air jolted through Pearl's gem, she looked towards Rose. The taller gem's brow was furrowed over eyes that looked towards nothing; her mouth stuck in a tight frown.

Before their feet planted down on the new planet, Pearl had vowed to herself to do better than she had ever done before. For Rose Quartz, she would turn Earth into the most powerful gem producing entity known to the universe.

  
Pearl held Steven's sleeping form close, the soft, warm breaths fluttering over her arm. He had spent the day toddling around the beach, using his newly acquired running skills to stumble through piles of sand, finding small treasures—seashells, ocean glass, driftwood—and shrieking at them in starry-eyed wonder, as if the greatest miracles and wonders of the cosmos were contained in these trivial scraps. Pearl felt tears begin to run down her cheek. They fell onto Steven's forehead, tracing a line through the silicate dust that was still stuck there.

  
Turning this planet into the most potent gem forming world would have been too easy, really. The planet was bristling with life in a staggering variety. Anyone could have done it; there had even been rumors of experiments of new types of gems and procedures being used by certain teams. But none of it had made Rose smile, no matter how tirelessly Pearl worked, or what she achieved.

Pearl remembered just how startled she was when she did see that lovely pink smile again. It was not Pearl, nor any other gem that caused it. It was the creatures of the Earth. Pearl would watch Rose watch them for hours; the pink gem laughing and smiling at the beasts, humans in particular, doing all their strange insignificant antics. Pearl supposed it was laughable that not only did the humans need plants and animals to _eat_ to survive (ew) for the paltry time they had, but how they were currently struggling to even make these resources thrive under domestication. Not to mention the other frivolities they were constantly up to—scribbling pictures into stones, playing games, dancing and singing for what seemed like no reason. It was droll. But there was something in Rose's laugh, her smile, and her eyes that made her think she was not laughing at their absurdity...

 

Pearl had seen that laugh, that smile, those eyes again today, after them missing for two years. She had of course learned that Rose's amusement watching the humans had been anything but derisive, and lived through all the consequences, marvelous and horrifying, of that delight and admiration. Steven hurt to look at, because although he looked like a tiny Greg, today she had seen Rose in him. He looked at this world with the same raw eagerness, the same genuine astonishment and joy that Rose had when she looked closely at the lives of the people on this planet. And Pearl missed her.

Pearl's fists were balled in anguish behind Steven's tiny back, but it was with utmost tenderness she hugged him to her chest. Rose believed in Earth; she believed in it so much she fought for it, she exiled herself for it, she gave herself up to create this little, tiny, confounding earth dweller. When the tears finally stopped streaming from her eyes, Pearl carried Steven to his bed and laid him on the downy blankets, careful, so careful of the most precious of gems to come out of this Earth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love constructive feedback. This is the first fic I've written in a looooooooooooong time. hope y'all liked!


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